Running the Road to ABC

This is an assignment I did for a class I'm taking - I thought somebody out there might be interested in some of the resources I found.

Lauture, Denizé, Running the Road to ABC. Illustrated by Reynold Ruffins. Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing, 1996. ISBN 0-689-80507-1.

In the Haitian countryside, six children get up early, eat their breakfast, and run to school. This beautiful book tells, in words and pictures, what their journey is like – both the literal journey to school and the metaphorical "road to ABC" which they take "up and down steep hills six days each week, forty weeks each year, for seven years of their short lives." Rich, poetic language details the supplies they carry, the plants and animals they pass, the people and vehicles they see. There are many nuggets about Haitian culture buried in the text as well. In a country where 60% of the population cannot read, these six children value the precious opportunity they have to go to school.

This book would make an excellent read-aloud for children in the middle grades. It is not only an example of lovely prose, but it also raises many interesting topics to be discussed. Some possible uses are:

• Social Studies – a unit on Haiti or any other third world country where literacy rates are low. The pictures, especially those of the school, are somewhat idealized, so it would be good to find pictures of actual schools in Haiti to see how crowded and basic they are.
• International Literacy Day (September 8^th), National Family Literacy Month (November), or at any other time for a discussion of literacy around the world and the great privilege of knowing how to read. A useful discussion could focus on how literacy can improve life for a poor person living in a third world country. Additional resources that include statistics and teaching helps are http://www.literacyonline.org/ and http://www.un.org/depts/dhl/literacy/. Students could even organize a Read-a-thon for Literacy through the organization Beyond Borders (http://www.beyondborders.net/read-a-thon/Read-a-thon.htm); there is a bibliography provided of Haitian-themed books at http://www.beyondborders.net/read-a-thon/bibliography.pdf.
• Reading and Writing – students could be encouraged to reflect on their own "road to ABC" and write about how both they get to school each day and how they learned to read – the literal and metaphorical "roads to ABC" found in the text.
• Science – the book could be included in a discussion of tropical flora and fauna because of the vivid descriptions of what the children see on their run to school.
• This book received the Coretta Scott King award; it could be used in a discussion about book awards in general or this one in particular.
• Art – the pictures in this book are in a naive, folk-art style, and could be used to talk about this kind of art. Information about the artist, Reynold Ruffins, can be found at http://www.askart.com/askart/r/reynold_ruffins/reynold_ruffins.aspx.
• Students could read more by Denizé Lauture, who has also published The Black Warrior and Other Poems and Father and Son.
• Additional uses found online: a study of Haitian-American culture (http://www.palmbeach.k12.fl.us/Multicultural/curriculum/LanguageArts/Haitian/RunningABC.pdf), depictions of school in children's literature (http://www.carolhurst.com/subjects/school.html), books encouraging physical fitness (http://www.kidsrunning.com/redribbon/ribbonresponselist.html), and "Growing Up Around the World: Books as Passports to Global Understanding for Children in the United States" (http://www.ala.org/ala/alsc/alscresources/booklists/GrowingUpAmericas.pdf).